Fun Finds v4.0

[WeMustBeMAD]

I found the Icesinger (Dragon 314) whose first level ability is Haunting Lament, which works like the bard's fascinate ability, but it affects everyone in a 90' radius and they don't even have to see him. Couple that with a Shell of Amplification that lets you use fascinate in a 200' radius (Dragon Comp.), and you can fascinate everyone in the village square. And if you're a high enough bard or took some Heartfire Fanner levels, you can then mass suggest the entire village that their children have all been possessed by demons.


Hilarity ensues.

[Garryl]

Social Recovery skill trick

(click to show/hide)

You can talk your way out of a problem you talked yourself into.
Prerequisite: Bluff 8 ranks, Diplomacy 5 ranks.
Benefit: If your Diplomacy check to influence an NPC’s attitude fails, you can spend another full round talking to the NPC, then make a Bluff check with a –10 penalty. Use the result of this check in place of the Diplomacy check result, except that it can’t improve the NPC’s attitude by more than one step. Once you use this skill trick (successfully or not), you cannot use it against the same target again for 24 hours.

plus

Glibness (+30 to Bluff checks) makes it trivially easily to totally break the game using diplomacy...

Yes, I know that cat was out of the bag a long time ago, but it typically required a pretty significant investment in resources. With this, any 7th level bard could do it with nothing more than a single spell known and a few skill points...

Social Recovery only improves the NPC's attitude by a maximum of 1 step, so no making fanatics out of your enemies. Also, Glibness only applies to "Bluff checks made to convince another of the truth of your words", and it explicitly doesn't apply to any other uses of the skill.

[Prime32]

Two missing feats from the Dragonshard articles - Death Curse and Hideous Strength

[SorO_Lost]

Speaking of Skill Tricks, don't forget Nimble Charge.

Nimble Charge [Movement]
You can run across treacherous surfaces with ease.
Prerequisite: Balance 5 ranks.
Benefit: You can run or charge across a difficult surface without needing to make a Balance check (PH 67).

"Difficult Surface" doesn't exist in the rules (d. terrain does, not d. surface), it is simply a header on one of the balance tables.
The Epic usage of the skill merges both "Narrow" & "Difficult Surface" together as it expands the skill for it's single table for a nice touch of ambiguity.
A cloud certainly isn't "narrow" either....

[/munchkinnery for humor]

[Amechra]

Here's a fun one:

Take the Silver Tongue feat.

Don't take any ranks in Diplomacy, only use Rushed checks, and find as many sources of penalties to Diplomacy as you can.

Proceed to, over the course of about 5 rounds of getting a negative check, make someone's Helpful friend Hostile towards them. 

This was originally part of a theme build I was planning as an NPC (really, really annoying princess that thought the players were kidnapping her, and so "helped" the opposing side. It sadly fell through because of wording.)

[phaedrusxy]

Social Recovery skill trick

(click to show/hide)

You can talk your way out of a problem you talked yourself into.
Prerequisite: Bluff 8 ranks, Diplomacy 5 ranks.
Benefit: If your Diplomacy check to influence an NPC’s attitude fails, you can spend another full round talking to the NPC, then make a Bluff check with a –10 penalty. Use the result of this check in place of the Diplomacy check result, except that it can’t improve the NPC’s attitude by more than one step. Once you use this skill trick (successfully or not), you cannot use it against the same target again for 24 hours.

plus

Glibness (+30 to Bluff checks) makes it trivially easily to totally break the game using diplomacy...

Yes, I know that cat was out of the bag a long time ago, but it typically required a pretty significant investment in resources. With this, any 7th level bard could do it with nothing more than a single spell known and a few skill points...

Social Recovery only improves the NPC's attitude by a maximum of 1 step, so no making fanatics out of your enemies. Also, Glibness only applies to "Bluff checks made to convince another of the truth of your words", and it explicitly doesn't apply to any other uses of the skill.

Damn you Garryl, and your reading comprehension skills, for ruining all my fun. 

[123456789blaaa]

Here's a fun one:

Take the Silver Tongue feat.

Don't take any ranks in Diplomacy, only use Rushed checks, and find as many sources of penalties to Diplomacy as you can.

Proceed to, over the course of about 5 rounds of getting a negative check, make someone's Helpful friend Hostile towards them. 

This was originally part of a theme build I was planning as an NPC (really, really annoying princess that thought the players were kidnapping her, and so "helped" the opposing side. It sadly fell through because of wording.)

Niiiiiice  . This reminds me of using the Power Surge feat to apply metabreath feats to the Dragonfire Adepts breath weapon. It's turning a disadvantage into an advantage.

And really great flavor to boot  .

[123456789blaaa]

One of the favored weapons of the goddess Akadi is a whirlwind  . I'm not sure how that works by RAW...maybe since she's the queen of elemental air, it's the whirlwind attack of air elementals? Anyways, use the spiritual weapon spell and create FORCE WHIRLWINDS  .

I wonder if there are other dieties with weird favored weapons...

[jojolagger]

Here's a fun one:

Take the Silver Tongue feat.

Don't take any ranks in Diplomacy, only use Rushed checks, and find as many sources of penalties to Diplomacy as you can.

Proceed to, over the course of about 5 rounds of getting a negative check, make someone's Helpful friend Hostile towards them. 

This was originally part of a theme build I was planning as an NPC (really, really annoying princess that thought the players were kidnapping her, and so "helped" the opposing side. It sadly fell through because of wording.)

I actually had a character idea based on using this.
The Idea used the slave rules to buy a warforged juggernaut to follow you around, and you order it to attack by using rushed diplomacy to make it hostile to the target, while quoting the little sisters from bioshock. Ideally, you'd want to find a way to apply a massive penalty to your own check, so you can also actually use diplomacy normally too.
Now, if anyone knows how to get a massive penalty on skill checks with an easy toggle on/off switch, then it gets truly outrageous.

Source on Akadi?

[123456789blaaa]

<snip>
Source on Akadi?

Faiths and Pantheons page 90.

[zook1shoe]

@Amechra.... Holy crap!

[Amechra]

It was originally layered on a Marshal build, where the goal was tanking Charisma, using a... generous interpretation of the "Charisma bonus (if any)" that the Marshal has.

After all, as far as I can see, Charisma bonus does not have a unique definition, and can be taken as a synonym of Charisma modifier.

She used Inspire Charisma to give herself a +Cha mod penalty on Charisma checks.

I also was considering stacking on Vow of Peace, just so that her "allies" took penalties for killing things.

I'm kinda sad that none of the other Diplomacy feats do anything fun if you fail them.

[Kethrian]

Yeah, that's a very loose interpretation, since the term "bonus" is defined as a positive number, due to "penalty" being defined for negative ...

[Lunarambling]

Here's a fun one:

Take the Silver Tongue feat.

Don't take any ranks in Diplomacy, only use Rushed checks, and find as many sources of penalties to Diplomacy as you can.

Proceed to, over the course of about 5 rounds of getting a negative check, make someone's Helpful friend Hostile towards them. 

This was originally part of a theme build I was planning as an NPC (really, really annoying princess that thought the players were kidnapping her, and so "helped" the opposing side. It sadly fell through because of wording.)

I actually had a character idea based on using this.
The Idea used the slave rules to buy a warforged juggernaut to follow you around, and you order it to attack by using rushed diplomacy to make it hostile to the target, while quoting the little sisters from bioshock. Ideally, you'd want to find a way to apply a massive penalty to your own check, so you can also actually use diplomacy normally too.
Now, if anyone knows how to get a massive penalty on skill checks with an easy toggle on/off switch, then it gets truly outrageous.

Source on Akadi?

If you can get the DM to allow the ghost PC rules from Ghostwalk, which shouldn't be confused with the Ghost from the MM, you can snag a -10 to pretty much all Cha skills that involve interacting with others except Intimidate, to which you get a +10 bonus. There is an item for I think 10k that lets you turn this on and off. Also a feat tree that takes 2-3 feats to do the same.

[Gazzien]

I'm a bit behind on this, but Whispercast turns a spell into a purely mental action... then you can cast it with your Schism'd mind.

[Chemus]

I'm a bit behind on this, but Whispercast turns a spell into a purely mental action... then you can cast it with your Schism'd mind.

If the Schism'd mind is capable of whispering, since whispercast says that you have to have the ability to whisper (not that you have to whisper, but have the ability to) Nevermind, not pertinent; each mind is still 'you'. You're just schizophrenic.

However, on reading schism, I conclude that the Combining Effects, and the Psionic-Magic Transparency explanation below that, rules limit the spell levels that you can use. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Gazzien]

I'm a bit behind on this, but Whispercast turns a spell into a purely mental action... then you can cast it with your Schism'd mind.

If the Schism'd mind is capable of whispering, since whispercast says that you have to have the ability to whisper (not that you have to whisper, but have the ability to) Nevermind, not pertinent; each mind is still 'you'. You're just schizophrenic.

However, on reading schism, I conclude that the Combining Effects, and the Psionic-Magic Transparency explanation below that, rules limit the spell levels that you can use. Perhaps I'm missing something.

I think that you casting Whispercast, then your Schism casting the actual spell, would let you schism-cast any spell allowable by Whispercast alone? Schism reduces ML, but I can't find anything in transparency that converts ML penalties/bonuses to CL, and I'm glad for that. (Bad, Practiced Manifester, bad!)

[Chemus]

I see your point. So Transparency is only for spell/power effects... Schism lets whispercast work for many spells. Additionally, I think that spells that have no components are also purely mental actions, so schism is very useful for Shadowcraft Mage's Silent Illusions.

So how would one get a persistent or recastable schism? Nemmind, I'll research then 'Ask a Question'.

[phaedrusxy]

I see your point. So Transparency is only for spell/power effects... Schism lets whispercast work for many spells. Additionally, I think that spells that have no components are also purely mental actions, so schism is very useful for Shadowcraft Mage's Silent Illusions.

So how would one get a persistent or recastable schism? Nemmind, I'll research then 'Ask a Question'.

Reusable psionic tattoo

[Empirate]

One of the favored weapons of the goddess Akadi is a whirlwind  . I'm not sure how that works by RAW...maybe since she's the queen of elemental air, it's the whirlwind attack of air elementals? Anyways, use the spiritual weapon spell and create FORCE WHIRLWINDS  .

I wonder if there are other dieties with weird favored weapons...

Chauntea has a sheaf of grain. Yeah. Beating around the bush much?